
A.B., Stanford; J.D., Harvard; Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley; LL.D. (Hon.), Chicago-Kent; LL.D. (Hon.), University of Heidelberg
Areas of Expertise:
Phone
Assistant
Brooke McLeod
Office
Hotung Building 6013
Professor Brown Weiss is highly active in the areas of public international, environmental, and water resources law. In September 2002 she was appointed to a 5-year term on the 3-member Inspection Panel of the World Bank and from 2003-2007 served full-time as the Chairperson of the Inspection Panel, an appointment at the Vice-Presidential level. Since January 2012, she has served as a Judge on the International Monetary Fund’s Administrative Tribunal. She has been a Judge on the Inter-American Development Bank’s Administrative Tribunal from 2014 – 2020 and was President of the Tribunal in 2018. Professor Brown Weiss is also a member of the nine person United Nations Environment Programme’s International Advisory Council on Environmental Justice.
Her past professional experience includes positions as Associate General Counsel for International Activities at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1990-92, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Politics at Princeton University, and Research Associate at Columbia University and the Brookings Institution.
Her numerous professional activities have included positions as President of the American Society of International Law, April 1994-96, U.S. Special Legal Advisor to the North American Commission on the Environment 1996-2002, chair of the Committee for Research on Global Environmental Change of the Social Science Research Council, 1989-94, and elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Law Institute, and the Commission on Environmental Law of the IUCN. She has been a member of the National Academy of Science’s Commission on Geosciences, Environment and Resources, NAS Water Science and Technology Board, the NAS, Israel, Jordan, Palestinian Territories Panel on Sustainable Water Supplies in the Middle East, and the NAS Environmental Studies Board.
She served on the Board of Directors of the Japanese Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, the Council of Advisors to the Cousteau Society, the Board of Trustees for the Center for International Environmental Law, and the Advisory Council of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Professor Brown Weiss is a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law; the Journal of International Economic Law; the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law; the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law; the Indian Journal of International Law; Transnational Environmental Law Journal; International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics; and is faculty adviser to the Georgetown Environmental Law Review. She is the author of many articles and books, including Establishing Norms in a Kaleidoscopic World (2018), International Law for a Water-Scarce World (2013), Reconciling Environment and Trade (with Nathalie Bernasconi-Osterwalder and John Jackson, 2d. ed., 2008), International Environmental Law and Policy (co-author, 1998, 2007), Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Accords (co-author, 1998) and In Fairness to Future Generations: International Law, Common Patrimony, and Intergenerational Equity (1989), which received the Certificate of Merit Award in 1990 from the American Society of International Law, and has been published in French, Japanese, Spanish, and Chinese.
In July 2017, Professor Brown Weiss presented the General Course on Public International Law at The Hague Academy of International Law.In 2010, Professor Brown Weiss received the Manley O. Hudson Medal from the American Society of International Law, in 2008 the Award for International Environmental Law from the Center for International Environmental Law, in 2003 the American Bar Association (ABA) Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy, in 1996 the Prominent Women in International Law Award from the American Society of International Law, and in 1994 the Elizabeth Haub Prize for international environmental law given by the Free University of Brussels and the International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL).
""All of us urgently need to band together to pass a robust and just earth to future generations," says eminent environmental lawyer Edith Brown Weiss," coverage in EurekAlert!, August 12, 2024, featuring Professor Emerita Edith Brown Weiss.
"President Michael D Higgins: We are at the precipice of a global ecological catastrophe," coverage in the Irish Examiner, November 14, 2019, featuring Professor Edith Brown Weiss.
"Environmental laws only look good on paper, UN says," coverage in SciDev.Net, January 30, 2019, featuring Professor Edith Brown Weiss.
"Cardinal Rodríguez at Georgetown: Without Paris climate deal, 'some countries will not have a future'," coverage by National Catholic Reporter, November 4, 2015, featuring an event discussing Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment with remarks by Professor Edith Brown Weiss and Distinguished Visitor from Practice John Podesta (L’76), former counselor to President Obama on climate change and energy policy.